Friday, November 18, 2011

Blood Rage aka Nightmare at Shadow Woods (1987) - In the nascent days of Holiday Horrors, we screened this lost slasher gem and fell fast in love with how graphic and protracted the death scenes are and how fucking goofy everything else in the movie is. It became an instant perennial -- even though it takes place on the holiday for no apparent reason other than the line, "That's not cranberry sauce!!!" Problem is, it's damn hard to see this film in all its inexplicably ultraviolent glory. There's a cheapie DVD release (now out of print) that's actually decent looking, but it has severe cuts in all the kill scenes, so we've been stuck with a dark, smeary, jerky-motion rip of the last fully uncut release of the film -- an 80s VHS from Prism Entertainment. But that shit's over now. Approximately 11 months ago, the brain trust at Horrors headquarters finally cracked the manual on Final Cut Pro and went to work painstakingly reinserting every VHS frame of censored carnage candy into the nice, clean looking DVD transfer. This Monday, November 21st, we're premiering our finished product: a complete cut -- of watchable quality -- of this dopey, blood-drenched, sweater-vested Horrors classic.